2014-06-29

Separating IANA from ICANN, the path forward

France has now taken the lead to open discussion outside of the "ICANN venue" as to the future of internet governance. Fadi Chehade ironically complains about those who want to delay the IANA transition when, in all probability, it will be him and the ICANN board which will want to delay the transition once they realize the vast majority of the global community wants to separate IANA from ICANN. ICANN is severely dysfunctional; whether ICANN can even be reformed or should just be replaced with a new policy making body (as France is proposing) may take a long time to resolve. In the meantime, the global multistakeholder community should not allow the issues of ICANN accountability and reform to delay the IANA transition. This is easily resolved by separating IANA from ICANN as soon as possible. It appears many nations and others in the global multistakeholder community are beginning to see this as the best and most prudent path forward. Once the IANA technical functions are separated from ICANN, that fact will actually assist the process of how to make ICANN, or its successor, accountable in the public interest to the global multistakeholder community, in its policy-making and administrative role.

For more on this issue, read Milton Mueller's posting at the Internet Governance Project blog (link below, excerpt follows):

Clarity emerging on IANA transition | IGP Blog: ".... structural separation of ICANN as policy maker from IANA as implementer would prevent concentration of unchecked power in ICANN’s hands and help keep IANA accountable – without having to solve all of ICANN’s other accountability problems at once. Once the two were separated, the ICANN community could take a longer-term, less rushed approach to reforming ICANN’s policy making processes. Issues such as the role of members in electing the board, ICANN’s legal status, new appeals mechanisms and the like could take years to develop and implement. It is unwise to tie the IANA transition to those changes. At a meeting with the Noncommercial Users Constituency in London, NTIA director Lawrence Strickling and State Department Ambassador Danny Sepulveda confirmed our sense that structural separation of IANA from ICANN is not ‘out of scope.’... The IANA transition Coordinating Committee, Strickling said, “can do what it wants” in that regard. Strickling himself expressed support for separation of policy and implementation...."